Follow Us

More

Avatar: More Records, Downloadable Script & TV Deal

If Avatar wasn't making enough headlines already, we have some more for you. In this update on James Cameron's success story about native blue aliens fighting back to protect their world, we talk about where and when Avatar will air on TV, a few more records broken domestically and across the seas, and the screenplay being made available for you for free!

The Screenplay

20th Century Fox has put up the full screenplay for James Cameron's Avatar to download for free. You can check it out here on PDF to see what didn't make it into the final cut of the theatrical version.

Or, if you're in the light humor type of mood, you can check out the abbreviated version below.

Avatar Keeps Breaking Records

Avatar isn't done breaking records yet and adding to its list of accomplishments, the film finally opened in China after some delays this past Monday to become the country's largest opening ever.

Despite opening on a Monday, Avatar brought in 33.03m yuan (approximately 4.84 million in U.S. dollars) and to compare, the previous record holder A Simple Noodle Story brought in 21m yuan on its opening.

Domestically, Avatar earned a hefty $13.3 million domestically on Friday taking the #1 slot yet again; Quite impressive since it is now the fourth weekend since the film debuted back on December 18th and the first non-holiday weekend where new movies have been released.

With the studio estimates in this morning, the current #2 grossing movie of all time banked another $21.2 million Saturday for a hefty $48.5 million weekend. Again, this is four #1 weekends in a row.

Avatar's total domestic take currently sits just below $430 million, beating out 2009's highest grossing blockbuster Transfomers 2. Despite the significantly higher ticket prices for 3D and IMAX, Avatar still sits quite a ways back from Titanic's domestic take of just over $600 million. Then again, Avatar's only been out 22 days and Titanic pulled in those numbers over several months. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the end and if Avatar's earns some Oscar nominations on February 2nd followed by a presence at the actual presentation in March, it will get a little boost at the box office.

FX has made a pricey deal for the rights to air Avatar on television in 2012. The network is owned by the company that helped finance the film in the first place and it has paid $30 million for the basic cable rights.

No discounts were made even though 20th Century Fox distributed the film. Fox has been on a spending spree for this year's major blockbusters as it also acquired the basic cable rights to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and the Twilight series.

Like most major movies to air on TV however, it will still air on HBO prior to this as it owns the pay cable rights to the film. Will they have 3D programming available by then? or will we be watching the standard 2D version in our home theaters?

Source: Variety

In Conclusion

With Avatar's epic success, I can't imagine how pleased the head honchos over at Fox are, let alone Mr. King-of-the-world James Cameron. I wonder how long it will be until we start hearing schedules for Avatar 2?